Ex-serviceman files online plea to save Army School building

MHOW: A retired Army officer has filed an online petition to save old heritage building of Mhow Army School from demolition. About 50 people have supported the petition.
Col (retired) Preet Kamal Singh Bedi appealed, "The Defence Minister of India: Save a beautifully maintained old military heritage building from being demolished in Mhow" on Wednesday evening.
Col Bedi told TOI that he came to know that the building will be demolished so he decided to run an online movement against it.
An academician Jaswant Singh Bisht said Mhow Cantonment Board (MCB) is celebrating 200th anniversary of its establishment, but, strangely it wants to demolish a heritage building.
Army School is one of the buildings, which were constructed when British set up a military cantonment in Mhow. A map of 1821 when the Mhow Fort came up suggests that this building existed that time. After execution of Mandsaur treaty between the Holkars and the British in 1818, the British started constructing buildings and structures for Army.
Bisht said that it was first the artillery hospital of 1820s. In the post-independence days, it became the All Arms Wing of present day MCTE. In the 1990s, the Army Training Command (ARTRAC) was raised in Mhow and this building was the headquarters of the ARTRAC for a few years before it was shifted to Shimla in 1994. Since then it became Army Public School.